King's Island TR 5/14

[thekidd33]

My second King's Island trip of the year started around 10:45am when we left my house on the north side of Indy and headed east to Cincy. The crew this time consisted of myself, my two brothers, my girlfriend, and a friend of hers. We took two cars since my brothers had to leave the park a little earlier than the rest of us. We made a quick stop to grab lunch in Batesville on the way down, then it was non stop through to KI.

My brother's and I arrived at the park just before one and they both got their season passes processed. We still had about 20 minutes to kill before the girls arrived so we headed over to Adventure Express. The park seemed very crowded with school groups there for Math & Science Day but AE had a station wait. I rode 3:1 and had a nice ride. It was great to see the lava working in the last tunnel! I always enjoy this ride more then I think I am going to. Such a cool little coaster.

After that we met the girls in line for Backlot Stunt Coaster. I am a sucker for any launched coaster and I am a big fan of this one. We ended up waiting about 25 minutes for this one and I ended up as the single rider from our group and ended up next to a kid named Eli who was there with his school in Fairfield (I think), Ohio. We rode 2:1 on the red train. It was a great ride as always. I even forgot about the lack of detail on the trains until after the ride. I was certainly very critical of the change to the trains, on here and elsewhere, and they certainly looked much better to me with all the decals...but it didn't bother me as much in person as I thought it would. (I feel gross admitting that lol).

We headed over to LaRossa's for a quick snack before heading over to Beast. The line (what they were using of it anyway) was almost completely full and we debated coming back later but decided to stick it out. This was the only place all day we encountered this problem but the line jumping here was TERRIBLE!!! We saw at least 20 (not kidding) people line jumping. I had never seen anything like that. The waited ended up being about 45 minutes and I ended in 2:2. Not a seat I was looking to ride in but by the time we got to the station I was just ready to get on the ride. It was a bit tamer then my opening day ride and the trim on the second hill felt like it was really grabbing but I don't think anything can kill a ride on Beast for me. Such an iconic ride.

We saw Firehawk was up and running and headed that way as it is my youngest brothers favorite coaster. However, we got there just in time to see the ride ops emptying out the station and quay. So we decided to cool off with a quick ride on White Water Canyon. I have always loved White Water Canyon because it is one of the few rides my mother always rides on our yearly family trips to KI. Its just one of those rides I feel like I have a lot of memories on. The line was fairly short, we stopped just before the covered bridge, but it took FOREVER to get to the loading station. I'm not sure what was going on but it was just shy of a 50 minutes before we got on. When we reached the rides platform there were two boats off to the side out of operation and we saw 5 or 6 boats leave the station empty. I am not sure if they were having some problems or what was going on. Once we got on though, we all had a blast. Four of the five of us most certainly fell into the 'soaked' category.

Next the girls decided that they were done just staring at Diamondback and it was time to go ride it. This ride was a couple of firsts for me! My first hyper, my first B&M. I was very impressed with how quickly the line moved, we only had about a 25 minute wait. I was assigned to row 5 for my first ever Diamondback ride. I have always had a terrifying fear of heights so tackling this ride was a big deal for me. The was incredibly nervous on the trip up the lift hill! That first drop is insane! I was out of my seat the whole way down. The airtime throughout the ride was amazing and I could not believe how smooth of a ride it was. It instantly jumped into second place (behind Voyage) in my top ten. I cannot wait to get back this weekend for some more Diamondback goodness!

We saw Firehawk was running again so we made our way to X-Base and hopped in line for Firehawk. Most of the school groups had left by this time and our wait was only about 15 minutes. I ended up in the very last row of the red train. There were some very noticeable forces coming out of the loop in the back that I hadn't felt on previous rides. This was the first time two of our group had ever ridden Firehawk and both loved it. It wasn't as fun as I remembered it being but still a fun ride and it was nice to have such a short wait.

We then decided to go ahead and jump in line for Flight of Fear. We were greeted by the shortest line I have ever experienced for FoF and ended up only waiting about 10 minutes. As I said before I love launched coasters and FoF has never let me down. The MCBR was biting hard as usual but the first half of that ride is maybe my favorite of any coaster I have ridden up to this point (granted thats a pretty limited number). The feeling of flying out of that station and up into the cobra roll is awesome every single time. I like that the lights are on this year so you can see how much track is crammed into such a tight space.

The group then headed down for a walk on ride on Flight Deck, though there was a slight delay to clean up a protein spill that a little girl had on one of the trains. I was 1:1 for this ride and this was my first ever front row ride on any coaster. I have found Flight Deck to be much more fun in the front then the back this year and this front row ride was great! The first drop is so much more fun when all that is in front of you is the ground.

My brothers had to leave after this ride so they headed out and me and the girls headed over to Planet Snoopy since my girlfriend wanted to get some blue ice cream. We stopped for a quick ride on Boo Blasters (I scored a 820) and they both decided that Boo was an upgrade over Scooby. After enjoying our Ice Cream and watching Diamondback make a few runs we scored a walk on ride on Flying Ace's Aerial Chase (I had never ridden it) before heading home for the night. All in all a great day with great friends at a great park!

Ride Count:

Adventure Express: 1

Backlot Stunt Coaster: 1

Beast: 1

Boo Blasters: 1

Diamondback: 1

Firehawk: 1

Flight Deck: 1

Flight of Fear: 1

Flying Ace's Aerial Chase: 1

White Water Canyon: 1

Total Rides: 10

[TH13TEEN]

^ Great TR, glad you had a good time.